The good, the bad and the ugly of election polling

With the 2024 election only five months away, polls abound. But since 2016, polls have had somewhat of a bad rap, and many Americans have become skeptical of their reliability.

David Dutwin, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at NORC at the University of Chicago, said we’re thinking about polls all wrong. On the show today, Dutwin explains what polls can and can’t tell us, how to spot a high-quality poll and what kind of role polling should play in our understanding of elections. Plus, what’s keeping pollsters up at night.

Then, we’ll talk about how the Joe Biden administration is addressing an issue that’s top of mind, according to a new Gallup survey: immigration. And, a Half Full/Half Empty update on the job market.

Later, one listener’s small-scale solution to the Big Food problem, and a divisive grammar debate. Plus, a listener was wrong about the meaning of “vibecession.”

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “What Can Election 2024 Polls Really Tell Us?” from Scientific American
• “Polling in 2024” from Reuters
• View the latest national polls from FiveThirtyEight
• “Public Opinion Polling Basics” from Pew Research Center
• “We still don’t know much about this election — except that the media and pollsters blew it again” from The Washington Post
• “US Job Openings Fall to Lowest Since 2021 in Broad Cooldown” from Bloomberg  
• “Immigration Named Top U.S. Problem for Third Straight Month” from Gallup
• “Biden issues new executive action: Much of southern border to close at midnight” from Politico 
• “Biden prepares an order that would shut down asylum requests at US-Mexico border” from The Associated Press
• “Kyla Scanlon wants to remind us that ‘people are the economy’” from Marketplace

We love to hear from you. Send your questions and comments to makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.